Karma

Great Debates
1

This is basically a quick poll. Do you believe in karma, and why or why not?

My own belief is that the notion of a cosmic accounting system is little more than wishful thinking, people just hoping that bad things will befall bad people. I’ve also seen it used in the ugliest of ways, in which a person who has had a string of bad luck is assumed to have done something to deserve it. Blame the victim and all that.

So what do you think? Is there any scientific or empirical support for karma, or is it just another woo woo idea?

2

Wishful thinking. There’s no evidence for it. It’s just nice to think that people will get what’s coming to them, all evidence to the contrary.

3

Do you mean one of the variations of the concept as formulated within its culture of origin, or the Western bastardisation/misunderstanding thereof?

4

[QUOTE=Lilairen]
Do you mean one of the variations of the concept as formulated within its culture of origin, or the Western bastardisation/misunderstanding thereof?
[/QUOTE]

Interesting question. Can you explain the choices a little more explicitly?

5

Wishful thinking. “That prick really screwed me over, and there’s nothing I can do about it, so I’ll make myself feel better by believing something else will make things even. The universe has to be fair, at some level.” Sorry, it actually doesn’t.

6

Self fulfilling prophecy. If a guy is a jerk, others will be less likely to help him, and his failuire rate might increase as a result. But there is no cosmic force in charge.

7

I’ve hated it ever since it ran over my dogma.

8

My understanding of the original meaning of the word “karma” is that it means, more or less, “consequences intrinsic to one’s actions”. The word appears to mean “deed” or “action”: when one takes an action, one becomes someone who has taken that action, taking on that karma; the actions one takes are shaped and determined by one’s circumstances and past actions, and thus play out past karma. (This is my understanding of the Hindu take on karma, which is probably flawed.) Wikipedia, which I’m checking my understanding against, says that some see the hand of god in the playing out of karma, where others consider just basic causality.

Buddhism’s take on it is somewhat different, but clearly derived therefrom, and I don’t have a handle on it, particularly.

What karma in this context means is one of those highly variable things. People who believe in reincarnation often believe that some of the conditions of one life are consequences of weights of consequence from previous ones. It isn’t deterministic – one can face one’s karma, not face one’s karma, ameliorate consequences of actions by taking other actions which themselves have consequences, and so on.

The Western bastardisation thereof that I’ve seen is often something like “there is a cosmic accountant handing out consequences”, with a certain amount of “so bad people get theirs and good people get rewarded”. I’ve seen a lot of determinism involved, as if the concept was cross-bred with Calvinistic predetermination: “Of course that person’s life sucks, that’s their bad karma”, or attempt to push off responsibility for actions onto the workings of karma.

(Appropriate disclaimer: I am not a scholar of these subjects, just someone who was sufficiently annoyed by the “Like, man, it’s bad karma, dude” to do a little research.)

9

[QUOTE=Fiveyearlurker]
Self fulfilling prophecy. If a guy is a jerk, others will be less likely to help him, and his failuire rate might increase as a result. But there is no cosmic force in charge.
[/QUOTE]

I can see a mudane form of it happening, as you describe. The thing is, most times when I hear about it, supernatural forces would be needed.

Many years ago, I was describing my roommate’s situation to my idiot boss. Roomie lost his job, had his new car smashed in while it was parked, had his old car stolen, and his girlfriend dumped him. I mentioned to idiot boss that he’d had a lot of bad luck.

“Luck? Luck? I can’t believe that you believe in luck! There’s no such thing as luck!” He regarded me as if I was the biggest woo woo in the room. Then he returned to his righteous, philosophical demeanor. “It’s karma.”

10

Thanks for the explanation.

So it seems like the original explanation ranges from very mundane to complete woo, depending.

11

I believe that people who live their lives in a cynical and negative fashion, hurting others and believing that everyone is always out for themselves, draw negativity into their lives and that bad things are likely to happen to them. People who focus on the positive and try to do good things for themselves and others tend to have more happiness.

I say this without any proof, just my personal belief.

12

I think it is just one more way to assign reasons for events that have none, and try to impute fairness to a world which is not fair. John who is a nice guy, has a sucky life? Might be karma from the last life, but the next will be better.

13

Karma as a cosmic force? No, except in jest.

Karma as in “people who behave well/horribly will reap good/bad repercussions as a result?” More or less true. The history books are filled with people who suffered the consequences of their actions.

14

[QUOTE=rjung]
Karma as in “people who behave well/horribly will reap good/bad repercussions as a result?” More or less true.
[/QUOTE]

I’m sure we can all think of a few truly bad people that excelled, and a few really nice failures.

15

Yeah, I guess I kinda do. I kinda believe that what goes around comes around. I often give to charities based on that belief. Why? I suppose I was brought up that way. Do I think that there is scientific evidense? Nope. I guess it is something that makes me a better person, so I leave it in my belief system.

16

I do a little bit. I do random acts of kindness to strangers and also help my friends all I am able.

It seems to bring me a dearth of sucky luck. Or maybe it just makes me feel a little better about myself and give me more self-confidence, which shows, and thus this helps me along in my life.

Either way, it works for me.

17

I like to try to believe in karma. When bad things happen to good people, I like to think of that as burning off all the bad, so that their future will likely be better. Or maybe it serves the purpose of preparing them to build a more successful life. So there may be an equal balance of hardship and joy for everyone. Some people have bigger highs, and therefore bigger lows. Also, we have no way of knowing the degree to which another person is affected by events. Two people could experience the same thing and be affected by it differently. So, if karma does exist, it cannot really be measured. And maybe it is not governed by cosmic forces, but by random luck.

18

Let’s begin with a major IMHO. I tend to believe in Karma that is much more subtle and intricate. Things like malice, hatred, greed, lust for power and control, fear, contains some kind of physic energy that must be dealt with. There isn’t always an exact physical correlation although our physical lives are affected. Likewise the more positive states of courage, love, compassion, honesty, empathy, also contain a certain energy.

People are complex. we may be compassionate in some areas and fearful in others. The true intent of the heart is very hard to judge. Someone may be generous out of a desire to be seen by others as generous. Like major corporations who do good for PR purposes but are willing to injure for profit. I sometimes describe it as the spiritual equivalent of “every action has an equal and opposite reaction” “what goes around comes around” works for me is well.

19

So cosmosdan (not to pick on you specifically, you’re just the lucky winner here – sort of like the millionth customer at a supermarket), is this psychic energy contained in the mind of the person who does the good or bad deed, or is it elsewhere in the universe? And if the former, how efficient is it in delivering its just deserts?

20

[QUOTE=tdn]
This is basically a quick poll. Do you believe in karma, and why or why not?

My own belief is that the notion of a cosmic accounting system is little more than wishful thinking, people just hoping that bad things will befall bad people. I’ve also seen it used in the ugliest of ways, in which a person who has had a string of bad luck is assumed to have done something to deserve it. Blame the victim and all that.

So what do you think? Is there any scientific or empirical support for karma, or is it just another woo woo idea?
[/QUOTE]

Karma as I understand it (from a semi-academic POV-- took a class on Buddhism that at least covered a lot of the basics in 15 weeks of class) is a lot more complex and is intrinsically tied to most of the other concepts within Buddhism, hence rendering the concept of it being a “cosmic accounting system” as oversimplified and lacking understanding of the nature of Karma in general.

Okay, so in Buddhist philosophical theory, we’re all interconnected and our actions affect everyone who is connected to us. Depending on the situation, it can affect the people who are several direct connections away from us (a wee bit like six degrees of Kevin Bacon), but, nonetheless, the things we do and say affect others around us. Are we all really here, or do we exist only in the minds of others that know/have seen us? (This one’s a tough concept in and of itself, but the seeds of consciousness idea seems to propose the concept that we do not exist independently of one another, i.e. in order for us to exist, someone else has to acknowledge that we exist. This in turn creates a dependence of action between everyone we encounter throughout our lives, and thus our actions affect everyone we are connected to. A little bit Venn diagram, a little bit spiderweb concept.) In theory, we only exist because we are acknowledged as existing by others.

So, having laid that bit of groundwork, we understand that our actions affect others whether we intend them to or not. Add in a concept of reincarnation as a side effect of attempting (or not attempting) to reach enlightenment, called Samsara. Samsara is the process of living, dying, and being born again (in various degrees of existence-- we don’t all come back as humans on earth every time. Also, there are multiple hells, each of which have different and sinister punishments that are executed for an allotted time as a way to remove the impact of the karma that had been committed in the life before.) until one reaches a point where they can break this cycle and become enlightened. (This is an existence that is both existing and not existing. In essence, one’s soul is free from the cycles of Samsara and karma. I really can’t explain it better or more thoroughly than that.) Karma, as has been stated before, literally means “action.” Expanding the meaning into a clearer picture, when one lives life in cycles (such as Samsara), the whole point of existence in each life is to get closer and closer to a final goal. In this case, it’s enlightenment. This means that each life is often centered around a lesson or behavior that needs to be modified before one can reach enlightenment. (Somehow, this explains the varieties of personalities out there and their varying levels of emotions, maturity, etc. Different levels of progress = different ways of handling one’s earthly experiences.) In turn, karma, or one’s actions has a nebulous but definite influence in one’s future; if one’s karma and understanding reaches a level where they can break the cycle of samsara, then they have reached enlightenment. However, this has to be done while in human form (according to traditional Buddhist thought-- one can be a god and not attain enlightenment, as being a god is not fraught with the challenges of being human). Karma doesn’t really necessarily affect what happens to you as a direct consequence of your actions in a “I did a bad thing, so something bad will happen to me eventually in this life” sense; that’s more of a consequence of other people’s actions affecting you. There’s no direct correlation between what you do as a person in this life and what you are rewarded or punished with. It’d be pretty hard to justify a one to one concept of “immediate karma” anyway, especially considering the way things appear to happen in life.

Do I believe in this particular Buddhist philosophy? No, not really. Part of it is because I don’t practice Buddhism myself, and part of it is that my concept of actions vs. consequences doesn’t quite work that way.

Also, tdn, if we go along with the idea that karma exists as a process, it exists in the consciousness of the people, as, well, theoretically within this system, that is where anything exists. In short, it’s all in your head-- literally.